Timeline

March 5th 2026 19:00 - 21:00

Research Night:
Tool Shed Open Book Session #1

HumDrumPress and the Nieuwe Instituut present a new series of Research Nights in the lead up to their collaborative publication: Tool Shed. The evening will feature a presentation, discussion and workshop, inviting early collaborators, cultural workers and practitioners to experiment with the ideas behind Tool Shed and collaborative problem-solving in the cultural sector.

December 6th, 19.00-22.30

Publication Launch:
Why Read Together?

We invite all those longing for companionship in their love for the written (and spoken) word, those with a desire to conspire together towards building a different world, those who rejoice in breathing life into words through their voices and actions to attend our book launch on Saturday December 6th from 19.30-22.00 at Varia. During the launch, we will be peering into the flesh and bones of the book in ways you wouldn't expect. You are also welcome to ask us questions about the process of making the book and purchase a copy. There will be snacks, drinks, and delicious home-made cake!

December 6th, 19.00-22.30

Publication Launch: Why Read Together?
On Companions, Co-conspirators, and Breathing Words

@ Varia, Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam

28 – 30.11.2025 K1, Brussels

BRUSSELS ASS BOOK FAIR

Organised by the Paris Ass Book Fair and KANAL-Centre Pompidou, the Brussels Ass Book Fair is dedicated to independent art publishing and will again host fifty-five exhibitors from Belgium and abroad, complimented by a public programme of live events, music, talks, and some very special interventions. The fair gives prominent space to LGBTQIA+ participants and projects, and brings together creators, authors, enthusiasts, and collectives to present books, fanzines, and editions that challenge mainstream norms. Its mission is clear: to contribute with joy and humor to making our society fairer and more inclusive.

Friday 28.11 → 17:00–21:00
(opening party 18:00–23:00)

Saturday 29.11 & Sunday 30.11 → 11:00–19:00

Free entry

K1
Avenue du Port / Havenlaan 1
1000 Brussels

13.–15.06.2025, HKW Berlin

MissRead 2025

Come visit us during MISS READ in Berlin!

Opening hours:
Friday, June 13, 5–9pm
Saturday, June 14, 12–7pm
Sunday, June 15, 12–7pm

30.11.–01.12.2024, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

Bound Art Book Fair

Find us at our first UK book fair!
HumDrumPress will be at the Bound Art Book Fair, taking place at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester on the weekend of 30 November–1 December 2024.

The fair will feature dozens of local and international publishers, artists' presses and collectives, as well as a free public programme of talks, workshops and parties.

Friday 29 Nov: Offsite opening parties 7.00–late
Saturday 30 Nov: 11.00am–5.00pm
Sunday 1 Dec: 10.00am–4.30pm

Sunday 24th November, 14:00–20:00, Vagabund Brauerei, Berlin

Book & Record Market

This Sunday, November 24th, why not spend your afternoon surrounded by books, records, and good vibes? Join us at the Book & Record Market at Vagabund Brauerei from 14:00 onwards!

📍 Vagabund Brauerei Kesselhaus
Oudenarder Str. 16-20, 13347 · Berlin
🕒 From 14:00

Saturday 2 November, 14:00–16:00 Bibliotheek Rotterdam

What are you waiting for?
Open Book & Mapping Workshop

A mapping workshop that breathes life into the waiting spaces and systems of Rotterdam.

The Waiting City is an art and publication project that consists of an interactive city map that traces the waiting stories and situations of city residents. Those who use the map are able to see their own city from a new perspective.

The map does not show the traditional infrastructure of the city: tourist attractions, cute cafes, navigation points from A to B. Instead it tells the story of the people waiting in the city and reveals where people wait, how long they wait, and what they are waiting for.
It tells us something about the times we live in and what people have to deal with in everyday life.

Join Merel Smitt, in collaboration with publisher HumDrumPress to consider what you are waiting for. To draw, describe, write, trace and map the different waiting spaces associated with your city experiences.
This workshop will include an introductory talk by HumDrumPress on the ‘Open Book’ series, an interactive presentation from Merel Smitt about the ‘Waiting City’ art and publication project before we collectively dive into a mapping workshop focusing on our waiting city spaces.

Please register for the Open Book Workshop via the eventbrite here.

Friday November 1, 19:30–21:00

Strawberry Book Launch, Rotterdam

Announcing the launch of ‘The Colonial, Familiar, Nostalgic, Radical, Transformative Life of the Strawberry’.

Join us on Friday November 1 from 19:30–21:00 to celebrate the fittingly end-of-strawberry-season launch of the publication ‘The Colonial, Familiar, Nostalgic, Radical, Transformative Life of the Strawberry’ at Kiosk, Rotterdam. As part of the event, author Marika Vandekraats, contributors Patricia Diz Neira and Shreya Shankar, and publisher HumDrumPress will be present to launch and activate the publication through collective readings, context-steering activities, and discussions.

11.10.—13.10.2024

MISS READ Berlin

Come visit us during MISS READ in Berlin!

Sunday, 13.10., 14:00
Reading Methodologies for/of Care

The Promiscuous Care Study Group with HumDrumPress, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, and Meteoro Editions warmly invite you to the double-book launch and activation of Promiscuous Infrastructures: Practicing Care and Utterances: Composing a Care-Informed Artistic Research Practice in the Cracks, by The Promiscuous Care Study Group.

Join us as we as we activate a collective reading methodology of care, of central to the two publications featured in this event, Promiscuous Infrastructures and Utterences, both released this year.

Promiscuous Infrastructures: Practicing Care, published by the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, calls for an ethics of care and attentiveness to one another, re-imagines the making and the use of infrastructures, and situates care within a genealogy of artistic and social practice.

Utterances: Composing a Care-Informed Artistic Research Practice in the Cracks, co-published by HumDrumPress and Meteoro Editions, is the sister-publication, proposes the ‘check in’ as an invitation, as well as a structure, dialogue, and reality that begins with the lived experience of the body, combined with the visceral experiences of sharing intimate spaces together.

Both publications are research outcomes of the Promiscuous Care Study Group. The Promiscuous Care Study Group have been researching and writing about caring infrastructures and promiscuous care for several years. The group gathers under the aegis of study, using their individual and collective care practices as sites of inquiry.

20.9.—22.9.2024

Between Books

Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Independent art book publishers, artists, independent publishing/DIY collectives, organisations, clubs, zines and magazines are invited to present themselves to a wide audience in the exhibition space of the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and to show how versatile, exciting and contemporary the medium of the book can be. The focus is on the local and regional publishing scene, but protagonists from all over Germany and neighbouring European countries will also be represented.

The art book fair is accompanied by an exciting and interactive supporting programme of book presentations, lectures, talks, performances and workshops.

Between Books is a meeting place for discourse on (art) books, alternative forms of publication and publishing as a practice, as well as a place to discover, browse and get to know each other.

More information about the supporting programme will be published soon.

Opening hours Between Books:
Friday, 20 September 2024, 3 pm–10 pm
Saturday, 21 September 2024, 12 pm–8 pm
Sunday, 22 September 2024, 11 am–5 pm
Friday 06 September 2024, 3–7 PM

Indiecon

Independent Publishing Festival, Hamburg

Independent publishing takes many forms. A glossy magazine or a spreadsheet website. A rugged newspapers or an Instagram channel. A podcast, a newsletter, a hand-crafted fanzine. An artist book or chunks of code on a server.

Indiecon is a joint effort of independent magazine, book, art print, zine, newsletter, podcast and website publishers from all over the world. The three-day publishing festival is based at Hamburg’s Oberhafen, a former freight yard now creative quarter right in the city centre.

Fri, Sep 6: 3 – 7 PM (we will be only present on Friday)
Sat, Sep 7: 11 AM – 7 PM
Sun, Sep 8: 11 AM – 5 PM

Indiecon 2024 – Independent Publishing Festival
September 6–8, 2024
Gleishalle Oberhafen
Stockmeyerstr. 43
20457 Hamburg

Friday 19 April 2024, 19.00-22.00

INC Micro Book FairExpanded

Publishing Fest #2 –
Space-In / Space-Out – INC & NERO Editions

We are very excited to participate in the Expanded Publishing Fest #2 - Space-In / Space-Out - INC & NERO Editions at the Micro Book Fair.

The Micro-Book Fair will take place this Friday 19 April 2024 from 19.00-22.00 at OT301, Amsterdam (with a club night that follows until 03.00am).

Admission is free and we hope to see you there!

More information about the Micro Book Fair and other participating publishers:
https://networkcultures.org/events/expanded-publishing-fest-2-space-in-space-out-inc-x-nero-editions/

Saturday February 17th–14.00-16.00pm

The Single and Available Strawberry

Open Book & Writing Workshop

The Single and Available Strawberry promises to be a juicy one. To conjure memories, flavours, sensory delights, and to bring you to a place where, when you next pick up that container of strawberries from Albert Heijn, you consider the many invisibilized hands that brought it to you.

How? Marika Vandekraats has been spending the past year deeply researching and writing about the many and multiple (his)stories of the strawberry— starting from its hybrid colonial roots, and tracing the many hands that have encountered this fruit on its journey to get to us, its avid consumer.

This writing workshop will be a moment to connect many more voices in the strawberry’s journey, and to add your own voice to this polyphony. Come with memory, come with desire, (come also with pen and paper at the ready). Starting with an introduction to the research, Marika will be offering some prompts to encourage you to dig into what sensory experiences are evoked within the taste of sweetness.

This event is part of the HumDrumPress: “Open Book” event series. An experiment in making the voices, ideas and content usually contained in a physical publication - typically the last stage of the publishing process - publicly accessible and visible from the very first moment in the publishing cycle.

Slots for participation are limited.
Please register if you intend on joining.
Location: Tent, Rotterdam

Friday 12 January 2024, 19.00-22.00

INC Micro Book Fair

HumDrumPress’ first public event of the year is here.

We are delighted to share that we are one of the invited publishers that will be joining the Institute of Network Cultures publishing community for the Micro-Book Fair, as part of the INC Expanded Publishing Fest.

The Micro-Book Fair will be taking place from 19.00-22.00pm this Friday January 12, 2024 at OT301, Amsterdam (with a club night that follows until 03.00am).

The Micro-Book Fair is more informal and experimental than the average book fair. It takes place alongside a stage program which we will be forming part of, in conversation with Jan-Pieter of Outline and Lukas of Spookstad, to discuss the invisible processes that go on in the behind the scenes of publishing, and publication making and how book fairs can better support the communication of publishing processes and contexts.

At the fair you will find also Platform BK, Starfish Books, Errant Journal and Valiz.

Entrance is free, and we very much hope to see you there!

More information about the Micro Book Fair and fellow participating publishers: https://networkcultures.org/blog/2023/12/21/micro-book-fair-expanded-publishing-fest/

Wednesday 13 December, 19:00

Open Book #1:
Harvesting

We’re very excited to announce that we will be squeezing in one last HumDrum event before the year is out. And it’s not just any event! This coming Wednesday 13 December will be the very first of our “Open Book” sessions, in collaboration with artist Katerina Sidovera, generously hosted by Goethe Instituut.

The HumDrumPress Open Book series is an experiment in making the voices, ideas and content usually contained within a publication - the last stage of the publishing process - open access, public and visible from the very first moment in the publishing cycle.

In these sessions HumDrumPress authors share in performative, yet accessible ways, the research and content they plan to make into a publication in order to form a direct dialogue with their readers and invite them into the publication process.

For Open Book 1, Katerina will share her research on cyclical ecologies, mortality, potatoes and publishing, as part of our ongoing publishing collaboration with her.

Make sure to join us next Wednesday at 19.00 at Goethe Institute Rotterdam to dive a little deeper into the HumDrumPress Open Book process, and hear directly from Katerina about her work and research and upcoming publication.

→ Wednesday 13 December, 19:00: Open Book #1 - Harvesting: HumDrumPress & Katerina Sidorova in conversation about cyclical ecologies, mortality, potatoes and publishing.

26. November 2023 15h

Booklaunch Maastricht

‘Lumbung, Commons & Community Art: a conversation on behind the scenes of documenta fifteen’

HumDrumPress extends a warm invitation to the official launch of our publishing project, as well as our newest publication, at Limestone Books on Sunday 26 November, as part of this double-bill publisher and publication launch.

The event celebrates the publication ‘Lumbung, Commons & Community Art: a conversation on behind the scenes of documenta fifteen’ with Florian Cramer and Simon Kentgens, and introduces HumDrumPress and our commons-based publishing model and project, to the world.

25. November 2023 16h

Booklaunch Rotterdam
‘Lumbung, Commons & Community Art: a conversation on behind the scenes of documenta fifteen’

HumDrumPress extends a warm invitation to the official launch of our publishing project, as well as our newest publication, with Reading Room Rotterdam at Paviljoen aan het Water on Saturday 25 November, as part of this double-bill publisher and publication launch.

The event celebrates the publication ‘Lumbung, Commons & Community Art: a conversation on behind the scenes of documenta fifteen’ with Florian Cramer and Simon Kentgens, and introduces HumDrumPress and our commons-based publishing model and project, to the world.

Join us for a gathering with drinks, nibbles, music, and discussion as we begin to dive into the process and practice, potentials and criticisms, of publishing as a commons.

Find the events playlist here.

November 2023

Volumes Art Publishing Days

Find us at Volumes Art Publishing Days, Zurich on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th November!
We are very excited to be present at the Volumes Art Publishing Days in Zurich, both with a table of publications and as part of their Sofa Book Club programme.
You can find us with a full table of books fresh off the press, including the first three titles in our HumDrumPress Lab series.

On Sunday 19th November from 5pm to 6pm we will be joining the Sofa Book Series to present our ongoing Lab Series publication format and talk more generally about our commons-based publishing model.

Volumes Art Publishing Days will take place at the Zentralwäschrei Zurich, Neue Hard 12, 8005, Zurich, from 12.00-19.00 CET on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th November.

October 2023

Zine Camp Rotterdam

We are pleased to announce that we were accepted Zine Camp Rotterdam. For Zine Camp we will have a table on Saturday 4 November, but will be around for the whole weekend participating in the accompanying programme of talks and workshops, so come say hi!

Exhibition "A Living, Breathing Manifesto for Publishing the HumDrum Way" during Volumes 2022, Zürich

HumDrumPress presents „A Living, Breathing Manifesto for Publishing the HumDrum Way“. A constant-work-in-progress textual manifesto which has formed the basis for the Press’ ongoing research process into methods of publishing that hold the potential to reach and attract broader reader-and-writer-ships, and that understand publishing as a “communal” and “commons” activity.

The manifesto began as a transparent, shareable exploration of the internal working methods and developing publishing practice of HumDrum Press, before then circulating among friends, colleagues, fellow publishers, peers, and strangers, all of whom were invited to edit, comment, remove, add to, and grow the manifesto into a textual companion that could be useful, and usable for as many as possible.

Through this next exhibited iteration of the manifesto, the wish is to activate the text as a basis to encourage public consideration, conversation, exchange, (dis)agreements, and future thinking towards processes of publishing.
All who wish to, are welcomed to interact with the current text in any way they desire over the course of the VOLUMES weekend. The results of installation will be uploaded daily to a “master” digital version, which, at the end of the exhibition will act as Snapshot One of the Living, Breathing Manifesto for Publishing the HumDrum Way and circulated among all those who contributed, as well as being made freely and publicly available online.

Find more information here.

Octover 2022

Field trip to the Printed Matter’s 2022 NY Art Book Fair

We are happy to announce that we are going to visit this year’s Printed Matter’s 2022 NY Art Book Fair,made possible thanks to Stimuleringsfonds creative industrie.

Juli 2022

HumDrumPress goes Zürich

Team HumDrumPress have just returned from spending four sunny and invigorating days in Zürich, Switzerland for the “School of Commons Intensive Weekend”. ☀️

As part of the weekend, we had the opportunity to host a workshop presenting our work-in-continuous-progress publishing model, which led to a fantastic conversion about publications as communication tools and "channels", finished off with the creation of a communal publication with our SoC community....all to the stunning backdrop of the lake and mountains.

The weekend was filled with a whole range of workshops and talks surrounding artistic research and practice, and included the sharing of insights, perspectives, emotions, and methodologies, mixed in with lots of fun and swimming.

We are humbled and thankful for having this opportunity to participate in the Intensive Weekend and to be able to meet in person with many of our wonderful peers that are part of this years’ School of Commons cohort.

Thank you so much School of Commons, especially Marea and Joseph for organising such an amazing weekend and programme.

June 2022

Granted "Starting Grant“ by Stimuleringsfonds creative industrie

We are happy to announce that we received the Starting Grant by Stimuleringsfonds creative industrie.

‘Amy Gowen en Wibke Bramesfeld ervaren in het publicatiewerkveld hiërarchisch gestuurde en ondoorzichtige publicatieprocessen, die velen ervan weerhouden publiceren als een vorm of medium te benaderen. Met het project HumDrum Press doen Gowen en Bramesfeld vooronderzoek naar een imprint- en publicatiepraktijk die gezamenlijke middelen gebruikt om de bestaande conventies en grenzen rondom publiceren uit te dagen. Door het opzetten van een op commons-gebaseerd publicatieproject bevraagt HumDrumPress de traditionele manieren van publiceren en bevordert en verbreedt het de inclusiviteit en toegankelijkheid van het publicatieveld. In de startsubsidie periode doen Gowen en Bramesfeld onderzoek naar een nieuw publicatiemodel door middel van literatuuranalyse, mentorschap en gesprekken met uitgevers. Daarnaast wordt een gemeenschap en netwerk opgezet en worden er organisatorische partnerschappen aangegaan. In deze eerste fase wordt gewerkt aan een helder communicatieplan en een duurzaam financieel model voor de toekomst van HumDrumPress.’

December 2021

School of Commons Fellowship

School of Commons (SoC) is an initiative dedicated to the study and development of self-directed Peer Learning, located at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). SoC represents an international community of practitioners, artists, designers and researchers who focus on matters surrounding the production and mediation of knowledge with a common interest in self-directed practices.
HumDrumPress is happy to announce to participate in 2022!

A Manual for publishing the humdrum way.

A Manual
for publishing
the humdrum way.